IIORSE-BACK RIDING. 77 



sometimes a single glass of wine, or the excessive 

 indulgence in animal food may lay them prostrate in 

 the grasp of their enemy. 



I am sure that total abstinence will well repay any 

 young man who has any tendency to this disease, for 

 any supposed privation. 



With the old, however, the case is different, and 

 this is especially so when the health has been broken 

 down by disease. They must be allowed daily a cer- 

 tain quantity of their accustomed good cheer, or they 

 become an easier prey to their enemy. Here we 

 must venture as well as we can between the opposite 

 dangers, between the Scylla of excess and the Cha- 

 rybdis of abstinence and debility. 



The same is true in regard to exercise : the young 

 and hearty can scarcely take too much ; the old and 

 debilitated may, by once over-exerting himself, bring 

 on an attack. 



*' Although I can do little more than point out 

 general principles for your guidance, I may remark, in 

 reference to exercise, that it should never be violent, 

 that it should be habitual, daily — not used by fits and 

 starts, and interrupted by fits of indolence or inac- 

 tion ; and that it should be active, muscular exercise, 

 as distinguished from passive exercise or gestation. 

 No mode of exercise is as good as walking, and with 

 this may be agreeably and beneficially conjoined riding 

 on horse-back." (Watson, ''Practice of Physic") 

 Sydenham, in his '' Tractatus de Podagr. et Hydrop. " 



